I do not think that the .fgtape format is a video format. I would dare guess that it is not even a binary format but rather a xml file or maybe a gzipped xml file containing enough information to let FlightGear do a replay (but do mind that the aircraft author might have not added some animations).

In essence, to get video of your flights you probably have to use some kind of video recording / video capture / screen recording / screen capture / frame grabber software. I think you can get some hints on some of them by searching the forum.

Low-level flying — It's all fun and games till someone looses an engine. (Paraphrased from a YouTube video)Improving the Dassault Mirage F1 (Wiki, Forum, GitLab. Work in slow progress)

Seemed like a binary trait. I opened it in Notepad ++, but it was just rubbish. I don't mean that it is a video format, but rather could I import it into, say, Blender, and then export it as something else? It's way too optimistic, I know. Thanks, all!

HelldiverSquadron wrote in Mon Apr 21, 2014 6:54 pm:Seemed like a binary trait. I opened it in Notepad ++, but it was just rubbish. I don't mean that it is a video format, but rather could I import it into, say, Blender, and then export it as something else? It's way too optimistic, I know. Thanks, all!

again, the format is basically seralized FlightGear properties, please see $FG_ROOT/Docs/flightrecorder.README - these are all just "numbers", the format is determined by FlightGear, and these numbers do not mean ANYTHING outside FlightGear, and even inside FlightGear it's really just the flight recorder subsystem that is able to open/process those files, read in the numbers and map them to the corresponding FlightGear properties - which in turn allows things to be animated/replayed over time JUST VIA FlightGear.

There's really no need to continue this discussion at all - all the responses given so far were rather exact, detailed and 100% correct. There's no reasonable way to visually "replay" those files outside FlightGear, short of rewriting FlightGear itself, or extending another flight simulator to partially re-interpret certain values. Unless that is something that you are interested, willing and capable to do, I'd just leave it at that.

What FlightGear is writing to those files is not actual "visual" stuff at all, it's just "gibberish" in the sense of properties that are only meaningful to FlightGear itself, and its features, most properties are in fact aircraft specific. Imagine those files to be containers for binary FlightGear properties, i.e. things like altitude, longitude, latitude - but also engine settings, flap settings, gear status etc.

So there's really just numbers stored there, nothing visual that would make sense to visually re-interpret outside a flight simulator environment like FlightGear.

To actually replay even just a single aircraft specific animation in FlightGear, you would have to write a python script that 1) loads the aircraft, 2) looks up the 3D objects, 3) maps the properties to animations - and completely ignore anything related to scenery, because it's typically just aircraft specific stuff that is recorded.

Please just believe us, and consider spending more time reading and understanding what you're told, instead of re-asking redundant questions, thank you !

Of course it is for you harder to remember me than for me to remember you. You are all over the place , where i post much less.

I am glad you took the effort to understand the message, even though maybe my words are a bit critical. What you do with it is all up to you (and what i do with your response ). As long as we tried to understand each other.

I find it quite hard on this forum to not offend someone while being a little critical in a positive manner. Surely i do not see you as a culprit or anyone else. It is more like people seem to focus very quick on the detail of a word, instead of trying to understand the complete message conveyed. This makes communication harder than necessary.

Often dealing with non-native English speakers can cause problems. They can use words that are stronger than what a native speaker would use. (I do not mean blatant rude people here, just a bit of bad word choice). For instance i have learned that a phrase like "bloody shame" is quite strong in English. So i avoid it. Some other non-native English speaker may think it is the normal phrase for just something serious.

Now what to do if someone uses the phrase and is in any other way polite. Nullify his complete message and go on about that detail, or just skip the mistake and still try to understand the message?

If we all try to skip things like that a bit more, we might all understand each other a bit better. Communication is a two-way thing. The speaker should try to be polite, the listener should try to understand the message as being meant polite.

Again, this is not specific to you, just something we best all be aware of in the world of the written word, which always makes things look more serious than if the words were spoken.

@KL-666: given all the "constructive feedback" I am getting here: I just spent 5 minutes going through postings I made on the same day, just to ensure that this was not a "mood" thing - and fortunately, I have found that I responded to other people (including newcomers) also very constructively, without them being offended - not just within a few minutes, but even a few seconds. So yeah, I guess you could say that "I am all over the place", but this goes to show that interaction is a two-sided thing. As long as someone actually understands that he's getting the exact answers they're asking for, they're actually grateful - I take it that the OP didn't realize that our postings contained the pointers (and even answers!) to his questions. So yeah, I guess you could say that people generally do not respond too well once they notice that they wasted their time responding. Over & out.

There is no "wasting time" here. Please just reply to my private message. I am weary of debating about something completely unrelated to the topic out here. Just refrain from making any more comments until we sort this out. It's not just between us; this is an ongoing issue with you as a forum user.

of course you're wasting time -once again- but if you are so convinced that I am the culprit, feel free to ignore me, there's a feature called "friends & foes", I just set it up so that I no longer see your posts, and I am honestly looking forward to it - certainly, not my loss